Chapter 210: The First One

Viv killed necrarchs until they blurred into one another. She wasn’t the only one either. Solar and Selyen roamed the battlefield cutting them apart, the old blade master having picked a sword for once. Sidjin caught another two, and a squad of Sisters of the Eye managed to nail a slow one. Nevertheless, they were still cunning and fast despite their stunted status. On two occasions, they broke through and laid waste to her lines. The two nerds’ wind spell had also revived the flames under the two drowned moats, so many of the incoming undead were cooked before they could reach the Harrakans. Any living army would have faltered before the massive losses the undead were suffering, but the dead were relentless and uncaring, and they would fight to the last.

 

VIv wasn’t doing enough. Another Storm of Zamaheer brought another few moments of respite but it meant not going after the necrarchs. She couldn’t be everywhere at once.

 

In the distance, the dragons still fought and destroyed the horde as it advanced. Only the fire bloodline dragons still spat great flames by now. Arthur and her sibling upturned the earth to smash undead to pieces while Meadow and others dove onto necrarchs for dangerous and deadly dances. It was going well. It just wasn’t going to go well for much longer. Everyone would tire, and then…

 

It was Viv’s job to change that. She was the so-called black mana genius. She was the one with the keys to success here. The people were counting on her. Hovering above the battlefield, she kept casting and thinking at the same time.

 

The undead were done swarming the third line now. Even with her night sight, the sheer chaos of battle and all the smoke made it impossible to gauge how many of them were left. Before she could stop though, a pulse of divine mana spread through the field like a ripple on a lake. It was black divine mana.

 

The way it just bypassed the enemy’s control was impressive. Viv almost lost her grip with the next nuee spell she was about to launch on a group of gut spillers. Suddenly, a voice rose above the chaos: male, but layered with an androgynous lilt that hinted at some measure of incarnation. She recognized the voice as Abenezigel’s. The language though, was unknown. The redeemed lich spoke in a guttural tongue that made Viv think of hidden caves and wooden spears hardened on a fire. It was ancient. Older than Harrak. Older, even than Emeric. Older than civilization itself. The meaning seeped into her mind by osmosis, not because the speaker wanted to be understood, but because the world bled with its meaning.

 

YOU ARE COMMITTING YET ANOTHER GREAT SIN, CHILD.

 

The revenants at the front of the formation fell to ash like sandcastles. Others stopped their assault, freezing where they stood.

 

Someone grabbed Viv mid-flight. Viv recognized Arthur’s claws. They reached for her shoulders, as if for a hug.

 

Mother.

 

I am scared.

 

I don’t want to think about the end.

 

Stop her from making me think about the end.

 

Other dragons cried in dismay. The pressure spread. More clumps of undead stopped advancing. Larger groups just fell where they stood, turning to dust in an instant. Harrakan lines stopped and breathed with eyes filled with dismay.

 

Enttiku, eldest of the gods, had entered the fray.

 

YOU HAVE LEARNED NOTHING.

 

IT IS NOT FOR YOU TO JUDGE.

 

Abenezigel walked forward. He was not an avatar, Viv realized. Perhaps he wasn’t capable of it, but even just channeling the power of the goddess was enough. The gods performed according to their attributes. Nothing went against the first one’s will quite like desecrating the dead.

 

The shadowy shape of a dark hooded cloak embraced the old man. His white locs flew under an unseen wind, and though his voice was tired, it bore the strength of millennia.

 

No, it was the goddess who was tired.

 

EVEN THOSE WHO DO NOT DESERVE RESPECT, DESERVE PEACE. YOU OWE IT TO YOURSELF AND TO YOUR HUMANITY.

 

YOU MAY HAVE FORGOTTEN, BUT I NEVER WILL.

 

AND I AM HERE NOW.

 

Another blast contested the foe’s control over the undead. Entire waves of revenants crumbled in an instant. The others were so weakened that it only took seconds for the alliance’s soldiers to dispose of them. In the breathing space afforded to them, companies rotated, the wounded were pulled back, and those who could drink and breathe did so. Large teams loaded the last canisters on the flame liberators with haste because they knew it wasn’t over.

 

Viv finally knew what she had to do, but she wasn’t sure it was a good deed. Frowning, she had one more good look at the large sigil of flesh formed by distant revenants. This was the beacon. This was the relay. This was how her enemy kept control over the horde. This is what she had to do: not destroy it for it would be reformed, but contest it. Contest her for the crown.

 

But… that meant she would gain control over the undead. And that was necromancy. Necromancy was forbidden.

 

It wasn’t that Viv felt horror at using the bodies of the deceased. She would use ten corpses if it meant saving one living soldier. Her honor didn’t matter half as much as the life of the people who followed her. It wasn’t dignity that had stopped her. It was long-term calculations.

 

Necromancy was horribly taboo on Nyil, therefore using it for short-term gains would only sacrifice the long term. It would be a lazy shortcut with irreversible consequences. That was why Viv had never used it. Would gaining control over the horde count if she didn’t intend to use it? And then, the obvious solution hit her.

 

She prayed to Enttiku.

 

Immediately, the goddess drew her in her embrace. The distant form of a hooded figure in a long robe fluttered at the edge of her vision. The goddess’ voice was weirdly friendly in this half in-between. It wasn’t some all powerful entity talking to her, but a friendly, mature woman with a warm laugh. The kind who would invite you for tea and dole out advice if she felt you needed it.

 

Hello outlander. It feels like you need this old one to give you a bit of a hand?

 

“I want to try something, but I don’t know if it’s a good idea.”

 

Something caressed her mind, gleaning her surface thoughts with a delicate touch.

 

Breaking a spell is not immoral. Using bodies for your own end, that is necromancy.

 

You are a mage, young one. Surely you do not need this old one to teach you about intent.

 

But that is not why you need my help, hmmm?

 

Never given much to introspection, are you. It is not a flaw, but it makes the next step difficult.

 

There is no shame in asking for help.

 

Start the contest, and I will guide you.

 

Behind them, Abe faltered. His intervention had given the alliance the space it needed though. They were perfectly arrayed behind the fourth line, the second-to last. After that they would be running out of tricks.

 

She was worried for the old redeemed lich.

 

He will be fine. I have use for him yet.

 

The goddess chuckled in Viv’s mind. She felt a pang of pity and sympathy that wasn’t her own.

 

His human self is too fragile. He cannot host me.

 

Viv drew the control sigil mid-air. She didn’t have the proper floating silverite symbols to help her with this one, unfortunately. It would make things dicey. First time spells were always hit or miss.

 

“There is no good host here?”

 

There are no good hosts on the planet.

 

I have never incarnated fully on Nyil.

 

I am the oldest and quite powerful, if I may toot my own horn.

 

First time incarnations are always fateful moments.

 

Now focus.

 

“Alright.”

 

Viv hurried to finish the sigil. It was complex and also a mage thing, but she understood it well enough. The construct was merely a relay for one’s will. It meant that the enemy had some monstrous control over black mana, eclipsing Viv herself. It also meant that there were probably a series of beacons on the way back to the capital, so she could have trivialized the battle by having a couple dragons incinerate the previous node. Fuck! Well. Hindsight and all that. In any case, as soon as the spell activated, her will clashed against that of her enemy.

 

She lost immediately. It was like trying to open a door and getting it slammed in her face.

 

“Ow.”

 

You need to contest, not wave hello, dearie.

 

“Alright alright. Let’s go.”

 

Viv returned with a vengeance. She wasn’t here to explore; she was here to fight off someone else. Her second foray was more successful in the sense that her own beacon was an anchor of the black mana around her. Whatever pushed her for control could no longer do it. Of course, it was useless per se. Using the beacon took all of her focus.

 

I will help.

 

Viv pushed, but it was like fighting water. The enemy was everywhere and it didn’t even feel targeted. She was being bested by something that functioned in instinct while the conscious parts directed the waves of undead at her own soldiers while battling the dragons while pushing forward tens of thousands of creatures while several hundred leagues away. It was utter bullshit and Viv was not amused.

 

“Et bah putain,” she mumbled.

 

Viv was in the race now though. It was impossible for something to be that much better than her, so there had to be a trick. Obviously that trick was intent. The necromancer wasn’t really using their own black mana for this, they were mainly manipulating it like a maestro. Pushing more black mana into the mix wouldn’t help. She needed control.

 

Gently, Enttiku pushed her along the path of understanding. Viv was an Ascender, so ascending was something she was supposed to be good at. What was the skill she’d been granted as class skill that felt weird for a caster?

Right. If the blue lady could turn fully elemental, it meant her body was momentarily gone, or at least transformed beyond reason. But wouldn’t that kill her?

 

Your elemental body is just at the beginning of its transition. That is why you are at a disadvantage, dearie. Elemental archmages need a long time to adapt.

 

Viv descended into her soul in the same way she did when traveling to the in-between, but this time the consciousness of the Goddess of Death helped her stay anchored anyway. She felt the cloud of black mana around her like an islet of familiarity in a strange world of solid mass and particles and… people. She tried to breathe and found she could not. Instead, black mana moved around her beacon. She saw herself from the outside: a floating woman with auburn air in mage armor shimmering with defensive spells. Her concentration almost broke then. Again, Enttiku picked her up before she could crash down.

 

“Sorry.”

 

It’s alright. You are doing very well for your first time.

 

Viv descended deeper into this strange state. The metaphorical eyes of the other were on her now, but it didn’t fight her yet. Perhaps it was too busy, or perhaps it didn’t think she was capable of offering a true challenge.

 

Deeper Viv went, aided by the quiet help of the eldest goddess. She was now in a state of perfect calm. The view of the battlefield changed dramatically. There were no more colors, or weapons, or even bodies. There were only shades of mana and vectors of will: a single, powerful one against a multitude of smaller ones, each one bright and pushing vaguely in the opposite direction. As Viv watched, some of them were snuffed out.

 

Deeper than this, was the planet. Not in the sense of a mass of rocks careening through space. It was the totality of all the mana of the living things here woven into a tapestry of infinite complexity, a beautiful, breathing chaos slumbering beneath everything that breathed, lived, and died, and the traces they left behind.

 

It asked her a simple question, not with words, but as a hollow in her spot, a void. She was supposed to fill it herself.

 

That question was: what is the black?

 

‘The black is power,’ was Viv’s natural response, yet that wasn’t precise enough. Power was quite simply the ability to do things. Money was power. Influence was power. Viv used all of those, so it wasn’t specific to the black, or rather, it wasn’t specific enough.

 

‘The black is destruction’ wasn’t precise enough, because it was also change. ‘The black is change’ didn’t cover annihilation. The planet waited. It wasn’t judging her and it wasn’t a test. The void had been here since the beginning and it didn’t even need to be filled. Viv merely wanted more, and so she had to do more.

 

Was the black the instrument of her will? It was also imprecise. The Harrakan army was also the instrument of her will. It was also kind of grandiose in a stupid way. The planet wasn’t like humans who needed stories to find meaning. It wasn’t like her. It didn’t need to be convinced. It merely waited for her truth, because it was about her, so her truth would be the truth about her. Again, the planet didn’t judge. It didn’t have the capacity for it. She was almost alone with a brush in her hand facing the tapestry of existence, and there was the tiny spot where she ought to be, and that spot was hers, and the tapestry didn’t need it. It didn’t need her. She was in control, and doing nothing would have been a form of control.

 

What did Viv want to do with the black? She wanted it to help her do what she wanted. When it was time to change things, it helped her change things. When it was time to remove things, or people, it helped her do that. When it was time to impress, it helped her do that. It had always been here for her, and it had always helped her accomplish what would have otherwise been impossible when she didn’t have the proper tools. It was helping her and she was helping the people around her according to what she believed was right.

 

She was using it to break old conflicts like the Enorian civil war, or the Beastling Tide. She was using it to build a nation, one pylon at a time, one regrown limb at a time, one slain undead at a time.

 

She was using it to bring her vision onto the world. It wasn’t doing it for her. It was helping her accomplish the impossible.

 

“I bring momentum. I bring vision, and hope, and despair. I am the catalyst for my better world, and the black is my catalyst.

 

“The black is my catalyst.”

 

It was her truth. Nothing more, nothing less.

 

Viv’s body blinked out of existence. She was black mana, and black mana only. The mana could host her consciousness. It was the most natural thing in the world.